Congress plans to investigate why two prescription drugs that made $5 billion in sales have been found to be ineffective at preventing heart disease. Though Vytorin helps reduce three risk factors of heart disease, as it is designed to do, the drug “failed to improve heart disease” rates, according to the AP.

Schering-Plough, which together with Merck & Co. manufacture and market Vytorin, said the study was conducted on people with an unusual condition that predisposes them to high levels of “bad” cholesterol. The results might show that only so much can be done to prevent heart disease for people in that situation.

Bloggers picked up on the story and raised a number of points. An unnamed nurse says the study gives people who are prescribed the expensive medication an opening to try another, less expensive drug.

Another blogger, known as Mudslide, criticizes the media for calling the drug “wildly successful” even in the context of the new study.

Vytorin is a combination of Zetia and Zocor, and it functions by stopping the small intestine from absorbing cholesterol into the body. Statins are an older group of drugs that keep the liver from producing cholesterol.

Results of the ENHANCE study were published in the New England Journal of Medicine online and presented at an American College of Cardiology conference over the weekend. The study examined whether Zocor was better than Vytorin—a combination of Zocor and Zetia—at preventing plaque from building up in arteries. As a result, cardiologists participating in a panel discussion at the conference encouraged doctors to prescribe a different type of drugs, known as statins, first, and to use Vytorin “as a last resort.”

The ENHANCE study may suggest that plaque in arteries can be reduced only so much for the group tested, said Thomas Musliner, executive director of cardiovascular disease clinical research at Merck, in a statement. The people participating in the study had heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia (HeFH), a rare genetic condition that predisposed them to have very high levels of “bad” cholesterol and heart disease.

An anonymous blogger who describes himself as a new nurse says the study is important to people taking expensive Vytorin prescriptions. “Now they have the leverage to talk to their doctor and say, “I heard about this ENHANCE trial thingy, and I’m tired of shelling out $200 a month for Vytorin. Any chance of finding something different?”

A blogger and self-described technology entrepreneur known as Mudslide takes the media to task for calling Vytorin and Zetia “wildly successful prescription drugs,” writing: “So, the definition of the news media of wildly successful is ‘they made the companies $3.8 billion last year’ not that they had ZERO effectiveness. So this is the new norm for new media: success is measured from the viewpoint of corporate shareholders, while patients/customers get hosed.”

Zetia keeps cholesterol out of the body by preventing the small intestines from absorbing it. Statins are drugs that work in the liver to keep that organ from making cholesterol. Another group of drugs, called resins, make the liver work harder, which means it uses more of the cholesterol it has created.